Two Men Expected To Plead Guilty In Minnesota Bombing

Associated Press

January 24, 2019

Ford County Sheriff's Office via AP

This undated photo provided by The Ford County Sheriff's Office in Paxton, Ill., shows Michael McWhorter. McWhorter, is one of three men charged in the bombing of a Minnesota mosque in 2017. They allegedly intended for the attack to scare Muslims into leaving the U.S. McWhorter, Joe Morris and purported ringleader Michael Hari, are accused of traveling from rural Clarence, Ill., to carry out the pipe-bomb assault on the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn.

Ford County Sheriff's Office via AP

This undated photo provided by The Ford County Sheriff's Office in Paxton, Ill., shows Michael Hari. Hari, is the purported ringleader in the 2017 bombing of a Minnesota mosque. Hari allegedly intended for the attack to scare Muslims into leaving the U.S. He and two associates Michael McWhorter, and Joe Morris are accused of traveling from rural Clarence, Ill., to carry out the pipe-bomb assault on the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn.

Two of threemilitia membersaccused of bombing a Minnesota mosque and attempting to bomb an Illinois women's clinic are expected to enter guilty pleas.

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Twenty-nine-year-old Michael McWhorter and 23-year-old Joe Morris are scheduled to appear Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota for a change of plea hearing. This typically means the defendants will plead guilty.

The men are accused of attacking Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in August 2017. McWhorter allegedly said the men did it to scare Muslims from the country. The pipe bomb thrown into the mosque caused damage, but no injuries.

In the Illinois attack, a pipe bomb thrown into a Champaign, Illinois, abortion clinic in November 2017 failed to explode.